Judges Program

Judges

What is Judging?

Halfpipe, Slopestyle or Big Air judging, like figure-skating judging, is subjective - in other words, it’s not a timed event. And to make it even more complicated, tricks don’t have an official degree of difficulty or specific points assigned to them.

Also, riders don’t have to call out their runs ahead of time, so judges really have to pay attention!

Judging is not just giving out scores and ranking riders. To judge at a high level with confidence and efficiency, judges need to be well trained in the following faculties:

- Proper Trick Recognition

Each trick needs to be recognized automatically and without much thought

- Proper Separation of the Execution

A Judge needs to be aware what a properly executed maneuver looks like. They need to be aware how much insecurities will affect the score.

- Estimation of Trick Difficulty

A Judge needs to be able to estimate the proper Trick Difficulty. Even when there is a new trick done, a good judge will be able to define the

Trick Difficulty.

- Points and Ranking

A Judge needs to be aware of all Judging Criteria. The analysis of the Criteria should happen automatically during the run, and not as a check list at the end.

- Visualization

A Judge needs a good visual imagination and memory. They need to be able to imagine the run from his memory and personal notes.

- Overview

It is very important that a judge keeps a broad overview of all the Heats.

- Thinking in Advance

If a Judge thinks in advance, they will get in less trouble with losing their overview. With thinking in advance you will be more efficient.

- Recognizing mistakes and Control System

Good self control helps to avoid mistakes. A Judge needs to realize immediately when something went wrong with recognizing the trick. A Judge needs to feel safe and stay calm in difficult situations. They should even recognize a trick when they have missed a portion of it.

- Efficiency

Good judging speed will increase the flow of the Competition. Therefore it is important that a Judge is strong in all the above faculties. The Judging will always be only as fast as the slowest Judge in the panel.

- Reliability

A Judge needs to be reliable. They should be always on time and never cancel a job in the last moment.

Judging in Canada

Judging in Canada is managed by the Canadian Snowboard Judges Committee (CSJC). The Canadian Snowboard Judges Committee is an independent committee integrated and aligned with Canada Snowboard's Strategic Plan but managed independently.